Framber Valdez has some choices to make.
As the ace of the Tigers staff for the next few months while Tarik Skubal heals from surgery, does the left-hander want to be a selfless leader, or does he want to be a selfish loser?
With what feels like half the roster on the injured list, does he want to eat innings and help keep the team afloat until it gets healthy, or does he want to pursue personal vendettas that can lead to five-game suspensions, like the one he was handed on Wednesday, May 6.
But really it comes down to just one choice for Valdez: Does he want to control his anger and help the Tigers, or does he want to let his rage get the better of him and hurt his team?
His choice was clear Tuesday night, May 5, when he hit Trevor Story in the back with a 94 mph four-seam fastball [his first of the season] in the fourth inning. It happened right after he gave up back-to-back home runs to the Boston Red Sox in a 10-3 loss at Comerica Park.
The benches cleared, though it just amounted to a stare-down, followed by Valdez’s ejection. He completed only three innings, forcing Tigers manager A.J. Hinch to go to his bullpen – which had eaten 13 innings the past two games – to eat the final six innings.
Thanks, Framber! Can you at least get us some ice for our sore arms?
It was clearly intentional, even though Valdez claimed he didn’t mean to hit Story. There’s also a Zapruder-like film by former Kansas City Royals star Eric Hosmer floating around suggesting Story was involved in “grip stealing.” Have fun going down that rabbit hole.
Either way, it led MLB to issue Valdez the suspension, which also took down his manager in the process. Hinch was suspended for one game for the incident.
This is the last thing the Tigers need as they struggle to stay near the top of baseball’s weakest division. Someone in the organization, besides Valdez, should be irate.
“It was not intentional. It was not on purpose,” Valdez told reporters about plunking Story through a Tigers interpreter Tuesday night. “It might look like that, but it wasn’t.”
About the only unintentional thing Valdez did Tuesday was to offer his insultingly comical explanation. It felt like a kid literally getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar while they look you in the eye and say, “I didn’t take any cookies on purpose! It might look like that, but it wasn’t.”
Red Sox manager Chad Tracy wasn’t buying any of it and said it was intentional.
“I thought it was weak,” he said, via MLB.com. “And I thought everybody saw it, their side, our side. I think everybody saw it and, yeah, it was weak.”
Hinch tried his best to not totally throw him under the bus, though pretty much everything he said suggested Valdez was in the wrong.
“Not judging intent – I have no idea,” Hinch said. “But I know when you go out on the field and you end up sort of in those confrontations, you usually feel like you’re in your right because you’re here, and it didn’t feel good being out there.”
He also said: “We play a really good brand of baseball here,” he said. “That didn’t feel like it.”
And this: “It was a low moment of a frustrating night.”
Yeah, Skip, no way it was intentional!
I don’t know Valdez. I’ve actually never met him. Even if I knew him, it would be hard to understand his psyche and motivation. But recent similar incidents suggest a pattern of him struggling to control his anger.
Last August, while pitching for Houston, he hit Boston’s Ceddanne Rafaela with a 95 mph four-season fastball near the end of a six-run fourth inning.
A month later, he drilled his own catcher, Cesar Salazar, in the chest when he crossed him up with two pitches after giving up a grand slam to the Yankees’ Trent Grisham.
Valdez said after that game that it was unintentional and that he apologized to Salazar. But if you watch a replay of it pitch, it’s certainly seems intentional, judging by the reactions of both players.
I’m sure this isn’t why Scott Harris, the Tigers president of baseball operations, made Valdez his big free-agent signing this offseason, showering him with a deal that could be worth $115 million over three years. It also set the MLB record for the highest average annual value guaranteed to a left-handed pitcher at $38.3 million.
Valdez was supposed to join Skubal as part of a devastating 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation. Now Skubal’s hurt, Valdez is just hurting his team and the Tigers are simply devastated.
Valdez needs to make up his mind right now. He needs to stop putting himself ahead of his team. He can either help the Tigers win or he can help them lose. He can conjure whatever excuses he chooses, but his actions for the rest of this season will tell us a lot more about his true intentions.
Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on X @cmonarrez.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tigers ace Framber Valdez was selfish and needs to control his anger
Reporting by Carlos Monarrez, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
